Pacific Division (NHL)

Former Orlando Solar Bears forward Ryan Reaves scored the winning goal, Marc-Andre Fleury made 31 saves and the Vegas Golden Knights pushed their remarkable expansion season into the Stanley Cup Final, beating the Winnipeg Jets 2-1 on Sunday in Game 5 of the Western Conference final.

“Everybody on this team has something to prove,” Ryan Reaves said. “We call ourselves `The Golden Misfits’ for a reason. We’re doing a good job of proving everybody wrong.”

Alex Tuch also scored for the Knights off an assist from Timber Creek alum Ryan Carpenter. Vegas lost Game 1 in Winnipeg before winning four straight to become the first expansion team since the 1968 St. Louis Blues — when...

The Devils’ Taylor Hall and the hometown Vegas Golden Knights went home with major honors from the NHL Awards.
Hall won the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player Wednesday night in the hockey world’s annual postseason awards show.
The...

The Florida Panthers didn’t make the NHL playoffs. But that didn’t stop much of the hockey world from still talking about them.
As the expansion Vegas Golden Knights won the Western Conference and advanced to the Stanley Cup Final, they did so partly due...

The Washington Capitals have waited nearly 44 years to raise the Stanley Cup for the first time.
Their only remaining obstacles are some desert-dwelling misfits who refuse to wait for anything.
The expansion Vegas Golden Knights are just four wins...

Washington forward Alexander Ovechkin had to wait 13 NHL seasons to make his first appearance in the Stanley Cup Final. The Vegas Golden Knights had to wait about 13 minutes.
A first-time Stanley Cup champion will be crowned in June. Ovechkin’s...

The Vegas Golden Knights won a spot in the Stanley Cup Final.
The expansion Vegas Golden Knights.
This is as NHL as it gets.
A year ago, this team didn’t even have a team, and now this team will have a chance to win sports’ toughest trophy.
This is...

The Vegas Golden Knights began their first NHL season with more hope than certainty. Players accepted general manager George McPhee’s suggestion they should think of themselves as being wanted by their new team instead of rejects who had been set adrift...

It doesn’t rival the “Miracle on Ice.”
Or does it?
It can’t match the ridiculously improbable run of the Leicester City Foxes when they rose to the top of the English Premier League in 2015-16, as 5,000-to-1 long shots.
Or can it?
The Vegas Golden...

The Vegas Golden Knights are going to the Stanley Cup Final — with a chip on their shoulder.
“Everybody on this team has something to prove,” Ryan Reaves said. “We call ourselves `The Golden Misfits' for a reason. We're doing a good job of proving...

The Vegas Golden Knights are going to the Stanley Cup Final — with a chip on their shoulder.
"Everybody on this team has something to prove," Ryan Reaves said. "We call ourselves 'The Golden Misfits' for a reason. We're doing a good job of proving...

The Vegas Golden Knights have become a bigger story the deeper they’ve gone in the Stanley Cup playoffs and rightfully so. In finishing first in the Pacific Division and reaching the Western Conference final they’ve set high standards on and off the ice...

Nate Schmidt wondered what he was getting thrown into when the Vegas Golden Knights selected him off the Washington Capitals’ roster in the NHL expansion draft last June. He knew one other player, forward Erik Haula, a former teammate at the University of...

It was 11 a.m. Friday, and the line in the gift shop at the Vegas Golden Knights’ suburban practice facility was 40 deep.
Fans, a majority of them women with small children in tow, snaked their way through the various clothes racks, holding fistfuls of...

In a finish that supports Commissioner Gary Bettman’s claims about parity ruling the NHL, the final Stanley Cup playoff spots and matchups weren’t determined until the final weekend of the season.
The Nashville Predators finished No. 1 in the Western...

The first year of the NHL’s Original 31 Era was an improbable and rousing success for the league’s newest member, the Vegas Golden Knights.
Starting on Wednesday against the Kings they will add a playoff chapter to the story of an already extraordinary...

Turns out, bookmakers have feelings, too. And that makes things a little complicated when it comes to the improbable success of the Vegas Golden Knights.
Tony Miller, director of the race and sports book at the Golden Nugget, said his heart is with the...

What we learned from the past week in the NHL:
The Ducks have an appetite for postseason play
After they unraveled in the third period of a loss at Vancouver last week and were teetering out of playoff position, left wing Andrew Cogliano said their...

The Ducks’ 2-1 overtime victory over the Kings on Friday at Honda Center was a playoff preview, as meaningful a game as the two teams have ever played during the regular season.
They pushed each other in the way long-time rivals do, triggering snarls and...

The coronation of Alex Ovechkin looked to be in place before Thursday night’s game.
A large swath of fans in red lined the glass when Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals came out for warmups. The faithful were set to watch the Russian megastar...

Eric Fehr is big, bad hockey-player-sized. He’s 6-foot-4 and a skate or so south of 210. He’s a first-round draft pick. He’s a Stanley Cup winner. He has logged 566 NHL games worth of cuts, bruises and blue-line mileage for anyone silly enough to doubt...